Today is the last day of my holiday, and tomorrow I return to England and Blackburn to start the pre season with the rest of the team. I have trained very well this summer, and in recent weeks I have been training two sessions a day so that I’ll be well prepared for next season. I have trained a lot of versatile training and very little football, so now I’m looking forward to really start playing football again.

Today it was especially exciting for us Norwegians to watch the sprint on today stage of the Tour de France. It was perfect for Edvald Boasson Hagen to walk away with the win, and Wiggins did a great job of pulling him in position. Unfortunately, it did not work this time and Greipel was too strong in the end. Anyway, it is great to see Edvald and the fantastic effort that he puts in.

The last few days I have been in Tromsø to visit family and friends, and it’s been really nice. I don’t have many days left of vacation so I try to get as much as possible out of it. Tromsø is a beautiful city and I recommend everyone to go to to see and experience the Paris of the North. It wasn’t to hot but the weather was great, plenty of sunshine and a lot of smiling people. I did some training with my old club, and it was fun to see old teammates again.

The match-fixing scandal that rolls in the media these days is incredibly boring for football, and it is very harmful to our sport. Personally I have never experienced any form of gambling on the results or other things in the matches I have played. It has not been an issue in any way in the football environment I have been in. I have no impression that this is a huge problem in football either. Of course I can not comment on what others do, but I have neither seen nor heard of any questionable stuff.

Right now I am with some friends in Spain on holiday. Here we have lazy days and late nights, and we enjoy ourselves a lot. It is important to enjoy your holiday while you can, and here we’re doing maximum out of it. Last night we saw the game between England and Italy, and it was an extremely exciting game. There were several chances for both teams, something that surprised me. In the end Italy won after a dramatic penalty shootout.

After the last game of each season I always travel with some friends to Marbella for a week of training. It’s something I do to strenghten my body so I avoid injuries. On this trip I brought Stig, Lars Iver, Dan Kristian and Chris with me, and we trained three times a day for eight days. It is long and hard days, but it is important to take care of your body and it’s so good when we’re done. We had rented a beautiful villa and we had a great time in the sun. We begin each day with either a running or cycling session, then we go in the gym in the afternoon before we finishing the training day with a round of circuit training with focus on core stability.

It’s been a while since I’ve been blogging now, but our position on the table wasn’t good and I felt it was better to focus on football. As a football player the relegation was the worst thing that has ever happened to me, as a Blackburn fan, it was devastating, it was cruel and I can not describe the feeling I had when the relegation was clear and the season was over. There have been some speculation and questions from the media and here on the blog about my future, my respond to that is that I have a contract with Blackburn Rovers, and I intend to honour that.

Now I’m with the national team, and we will play against England and Croatia. I’ve never played against England before so I’m looking foreward to that, and after the match against Croatia, it is holiday. And I look very much forward to a few weeks of rest with family and friends. Right now we’re just training and enjoying the summer that has arrived Oslo.

Today we face Liverpool at Ewood Park, and both teams need the points awarded in this game. But if we are struggling, it seems like Liverpool are struggling even more. We have got more points than them after Christmas, and they have an important cup game against Everton in mind. This season we haven’t gotten a single thing for free, everything we do feels like it hits on the wrong side of the post. We know that very well, and we are working harder than ever to get what we need to survive. And just when it seemed that we would be able to get a gap down to our rivals in the relegation battle Liverpool managed to lose to two of our biggest rivals and let them right back in the game again. So we have absolutely something to avenge Liverpool for today. COYB

We held out for about 80 minutes yesterday, but unfortunately it didn’t go all the way. Manchester United had the ball a lot but we created several good chances and could have scored a few goals and won this game. But it is not easy to stop Manchester United when they get the smell of the league title. It’s a good reason why they are on top of the table, and we experienced that the last ten minutes yesterday. I thought for a moment that I had scored, but the ref blew his whistle for situation that happend just before. It is a bit bitter, but it is like that sometimes. Now we just have to look ahead to the West Brom game and get ready for that.

I was out walking in the city earlier today, and stood on red light waiting to cross the street. While I stood there this lady came on her bike, and she went flat out on her face just in front of me. It was a pretty scary situation, and fortunately she felled onto the sidewalk and not into the street. It could have gone really bad. I helped her up and checked that she was alright, and just next to the street there where some 18 year old boys playing street football, they also came to and helped save her bike, and put together the parts that went into pieces. There was lots of traffic on the site, so she was quite upset and was a bit shaken by the situation, so we all stood there with her until she was calm and able to continue on his journey. Fortunately it went well with her, and fortunately she had a helmet on, because she fell properly. It was also great to see that there were several people who came to help her.

It was a fantastic win yesterday, and it was fully deserved. We played very good at times, and the key to that was that we defended very well. Attack-wise, we have played quite well in many games this season, but in the last two games we have defended very well as well. One good example is the match-winning tackle Martin Olsson made on the goal line to deny them 1-1. It gave us the opportunity to keep a clean sheet which was incredibly important, and it gave us the opportunity to kill the game with The Yaks 2-0 scoring. Now we have kept a clean sheet in two games in a row, and it finally feels like it has loosened a bit for us. Nevertheless, it is important that we keep working on these results and ensure that we win more games. Because I love to win and the feeling we have now and we damn sure have to get that feeling in the next few games as well.

Last week was a sad week. First, we lost five of our countrymen in a tragic and incomprehensible plane crash, then Fabrice Muamba had heart attack during a football game against Tottenham. It’s difficult to set words on these things, but my thoughts first and foremost goes to the families and those who are directly affected by the accidents. But such accidents hits wide amongst people. Everyone in Norway feel sorrow over the plane crash, and the whole football family from players to staff to supporters to feel sorrow for Muambas situation. Luckily it seems that it’s going to go well with Muamba, but both situations puts football in perspective. Some things are just more important. The incident with Muamba shows that the football family stays together regardless what team you support when something like this happens, and I really appreciate that. This week starts no better. First, a maniac in France starts shooting children, then there is an avalanche of Northern Norway killing four Swiss and a Frenchman. I don’t even know where to begin…